The Slice: Secrets to Kate’s ‘pumkin’

Here, according to a little girl named Kate in Mrs. Hoffman’s first/second grade class at Garfield Elementary, is how you turn a pumpkin into a jack-o’-lantern.

“1. First you need a pumkin. 2. You take the pumkin home. 3. You need a grownup to hellp you carev the pumkin. 4. You take off the top and get all the gutts out. 5. You take a mrkr and draw a face on the pumkin.”

Holiday on ice: Steve Heaps remembers a frigid Halloween for his kids in Manitoba and trick-or-treating in Utah on a night so cold the daughter of a friend was reduced to tears. That same night, a non-Mormon family invited the adults in for warming shots of whiskey. “The kids got hot chocolate.”

School sports mascots that would reflect Spokane’s status as a regional medical center: Wayne Pomerleau suggested “Scrubs.”

Dana Freeborn proposed “Gastros.”

Charles Brondos offered “Ventilators,” “Proctologists,” and “Phlebotomists,” among others.

My friend Lawrence Killingsworth guessed “Fightin’ Catheterizers” probably would not go over well.

And Barbara Lee shared this. “I started at Salk Junior High (not middle school then) as a seventh-grader when Salk first opened. I think it was about 1964. One of the early orders of business was for us to select a mascot/team name for our newly minted school. Since our namesake was Dr. Jonas Salk, a faction of the students wanted to go with a medical theme and be the Salk ‘Hypos,’ with a syringe as the mascot. Obviously we were overridden by the administration and we were named the Spartans.”

Most important sporting event in modern American history: Steven Stuart argued that it was 1980’s “Miracle on Ice” Olympic hockey upset.

Slice answer: “I am happy to report I get kissed in a grain field every day during harvest,” wrote Laurie Suess. “I ride combine every evening during harvest with my husband, a Colfax wheat farmer, and always get a kiss before getting out of the combine.”

Today’s Slice question: How do you get off the phone with someone who won’t stop talking?